


Approaching Eternity

by annabeth_at_the_helm



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Cheating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:23:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_at_the_helm/pseuds/annabeth_at_the_helm
Summary: Hawkeye remembers.





	Approaching Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> /emphasis/; written for Raven's July 11, 2003 Friday five minute challenge, 'Angels--'

Angels took him away from me, before I had the chance to tell him I loved him. It was a distant memory, anything that could remind me -- of anything -- and I would cover them with shrouds, colours that winked in and out of existence...

This many years out of the war they say I've gone crazy, that my eyes are milky white and see only far in the past, and maybe it's true.

I've been sitting here and rocking, scribbling words onto a well-worn piece of paper, and I know what she's thinking.

One little girl, and I look down, and that's what I recall -- the endlessly blue eyes of a child, my child, and she's still a little girl to me, even though she's been married for years and her girls are married now as well. She doesn't understand my need to write, she only lets me have these few sheets of paper per week, only allows me to write for a short duration.

Then I sleep, cold, and the angels drift in my dreams and remind me yet again. And I curse them, those ethereal beings, luminescent and lovely, as they hover at the fringes of my consciousness, because they took him away from me.

My wife could not have separated us. My daughter could not have rent the silky strands that bound our hearts. I'll never forget it.

Ten minutes after I arrived home I got the call, the dizzying, soul-shearing phone call that sent me tearing to my knees, my hands trembling, my body an explosion of grief, the receiver slack within aching fingers.

I could not find my grip then, and now I write, because in these words sometimes I catch a shimmer of my love -- the old memories -- the old love -- 

I've never regretted getting married, fathering my little girl who even now crouches at my feet, rearranging the blankets that try to keep my cold feet warm.

At last, I think I can see them, but it's just a suggestion of the air changing, like something hard and strong is beating against the current, and the white strands of my hair flutter against my wrinkled forehead. The scent of roses is close, and rain as it's falling, and the entire atmosphere has taken on a pearlescent sheen.

As I touch my little girl's head, I whisper goodbye, and I say only three words as I feel myself start soaring towards the one love that I could never remember -- not till I was old -- but could never completely forget.

And I've waited sixty years to say those words.

**Author's Note:**

> for iolanthe, RIP


End file.
